Follow your leader

I thought that "follow your leader" was an interesting recurring thought. The first time it is mentioned as Delano saw the ship and it was written on the front. It does not seem to hold any particular importance. As the story unravels, we learn that Aranda was the “leader” and owner of the slaves and the ship. However, the slaves then revolted, killed Aranda, and thus became the “leaders” of the ship. They put his body on the front of the ship and wrote “follow your leader” underneath. They figure that they will not come in contact with any other ships, but a complication arises when Delano enters their ship. As the leaders, they controlled the ship the entire book, but made it appear like Benito Cereno was in charge so Delano would not counter their control over the ship knowing that slaves were in charge. Specifically, it appeared that Babo catered to Benito Cereno’s every move and order. This was complete illusion and trickery since Babo was really in charge of the entire ship along with Atufal, who had appeared earlier in the novella in chains. Finally, the fact that Cereno kills himself at the conclusion of the novella shows that he followed his friend and leader, Aranda.
I think that this trickery of who is actually in charge was put in to create a story that was almost a riddle. There were several suspicious things that Melville included in the story that could have lead the reader to suspect that something fishy (no pun intended) was going on aboard the ship, but nothing too direct. For example, Babo always seemed to answer instead of Cereno, which was an indication that he might have not been in charge of the ship. Overall, I think that the illusions and switching of who was really in charge made for an interesting read and the “follow your leader” motif made continuity.